Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge Season 2 Episodes 7-9

 

Snow Way Out

Toothless is wearing armour of Gronkle Iron, it’s not particularly comfortable for Toothless and under pressure pressure it completely breaks down. He gets hit, but it’s all a training exercise so it doesn’t really matter.

After some banter, Astrid... Oh hey Astrid’s in this episode, given the last lot I felt the need to keep count. Anyway, she was heading to Berk but en-route she bumped into trader Johann and has some urgent news. Ryker and his group have been in the Northern Market looking for cold weather gear, in the middle of summer.

The group deduce they must be after a Snow Wraith tooth, the same tooth that helped them unlock the Dragon Eye. With the likelihood of their next move being a major assault on the edge, Hiccup tells the others they’ll be heading out to stop them.

En-route, Astrid remarks that Heather ‘won’t be a problem’ sparking some confusion amongst the others. Their plan is to relocate the Snow Wraith away from the hunters. Notice how their clothes are barely impacted by the snow. Hiccup and Astrid lose each other in the storm, but somehow Snotlout has managed to keep a fire going, what?

Astrid spots a fire on the mountain and we soon see that it’s Heather and her dragon. The two hug, Astrid deliberately ditched Hiccup to talk to Heather, who was the one who really provided the intel. Also, the snow seems to have stopped as they talk by the fire. Yeah, for the 2 of you who didn’t realise this, here’s the reveal that Heather is really a double-agent.

Heather reveals that Snow Wraiths tend to hibernate in ice caves during the summer and that’s why they’re on the island now. She has an idea where the cave might be and tells Astrid to have Hiccup and co investigate whilst she stalls Ryker. They decided to keep Hiccup in the dark out of fears his caring nature would have him pull her out and blow her cover, Astrid is a little concerned but ultimately agreed.

Astrid plays the information as her own theory, and gets a bit of a chewing out by Hiccup. Meanwhile Heather’s attempts to delay Ryker don’t work, he insists on searching the same mountain but from ground level. Hiccup immediately deduces that the cave Heather sent them to is the right one but Ryker isn’t far behind and a short battle ensues.

After his minions fail, Ryker asks that the leader of the group is sent out to negotiate. Hiccup agrees to the talk but naturally the talking doesn’t last very long. Heather has Windshear trip up on of the guards to blind the sniper so Hiccup has time to block his attack. When Ryker questions this, Heather says he’s more valuable alive. Ryker orders her to seal the cave entrance, which she does to maintain her cover.

The group are alarmed to find there are actually 3 Snow wraiths, and worse their noise managed to wake them up. After a quick skirmish the Snow Wraiths burrow their way to freedom, but immediately bump into the Hunters. Hiccup gets Barf and Belch to cause an avalanche that takes out most of Ryker’s men, and allows them an opportunity to rescue the Snow Wraiths. Hiccup is about to take on Ryker but Heather comes to his rescue.

Ryker runs out of arrows, but as Toothless is about to shoot them down, Astrid intervenes and says that Heather’s with them, loud enough that Ryker probably should’ve heard that. Astrid comes clean to everyone, and Hiccup is not impressed. It’s not until Astrid reveals that Ryker is not the head of the Dragon Hunters, there’s someone above him called Viggo to deal with, who even Ryker fears.

It’s a good episode for some much needed plot progression.

Rating 7.5/10

Edge of Disaster, part 1

Astrid is flying to a watchtower and finds out that the Twins, rather than staying at their post, abandoned it at the first opportunity and left 2 dummies in their place. OK, what idiot put these two on anything. Anyway, she complains to Hiccup about it, and jeez, Hiccup has chewed out the twins for being irresponsible before, why is he defending them now?

Hiccup gets a terror mail from Trader Johann, he’s apparently under attack by Dragon Hunters. Since Snotlout and Hiccup have viable armour, and Meatlug is naturally immune to the arrows, Astrid and the twins have to stay behind and guard the edge, much to Astrid’s dismay. 

The others leave and Astrid has the pair go to work, it goes about as well as you’d expect. Instead of helping building stairs to a watchtower, they create a zipline from a cliff above. Ruffnut has had enough of the verbal abuse and calls Astrid out. This might’ve had a bigger impact if they hadn’t spent the entire day slacking off and being nothing but nuisances. As it is, I side with Astrid, and I will happily tell the twins I have little respect for either of them.

The crew finds trader Johann and his ship is under assault by dragons? Fishlegs is captured by a Monstrous Nightmare for some reason. Tuffnut is informed by the chicken that Ruffnut has been captured by Dragon Hunters.

Johann takes Hiccup and Snotlout to the Island where the dragons originated, they’re all concerned about how aggressive these dragons have been. And find it slightly strange that they only seems to be interested in terrorising them as opposed to stealing or outright attacking.

Tuffnut runs straight to Astrid and they set off in pursuit of Ruffnut. They see a massive fleet of ships heading right their way. Astrid immediate gets to work sending a Terror mail to Berk for reinforcements. But there’s no telling how long that will take.

Tuffnut has some ideas to use his pranking skills to help defend but Astrid dismisses them off-hand. Eventually she compromises and allows Tuffnut to pit his plan against hers, and see which one’s best to use.

Apparently using trader Johann to lure to lure the riders away was Dagur’s idea, OK… This gives away far too much of the game. I’ll explain what I mean later on. Anyway, Ryker, Dagur and Heather arrive on the island and meet with the captured Ruffnut, Ryker believes this means they haven’t taken the bait. Despite this setback, Dagur says they’ll press on anyway. Dagur reveals he plans to betray Ryker as soon as they have the Dragon Eye, much to Ruffnut’s amusement. This is the second time this season, they’ve done the Ruffnut gets captured and annoys everyone shtick better than the third film.

Back with Hiccup, Snotlout and Johann, they see Fishlegs is surrounded by the dragons, Hiccup volunteers Snolout to lead the charge because he’s the most expendable. They’ve got monstrous nightmares guarding them from above, making things difficult. With the attack imminent, Astrid tells Tuffnut to man her ballista and destroy things with it. The episode ends with the beginning of the attack

It’s an intense episode, brought back a little by the twins hijinks

Rating 8/10

Edge of Disaster part 2

Astrid hides the Dragon Eye and, with the ballista and later a Monstrous Nightmare gel catapult, they manage to sink 2 ships. 

Hiccup’s plan is to have Johann riding Fishlegs distract the upper guards whilst Hiccup provides a sneak rescue. Meanwhile though, Fishlegs manages to help a choking baby Gronkle, earning favour amongst the assembled dragons, he notices that they all seem scarred more than they should be. He concludes that Dragon Hunters have likely attacked them, making them more aggressive towards humans. Meatlug spots Fishlegs and comes in for a rescue, causing a standoff that Fishlegs ends by the sending the others away.

Ryker isn’t happy that they managed to sink both ships, but he’s back on land, sending his forces inland. When Ruffnut proves too much of a nuisance, Heather bounds her to tree, hinting that she’s making it easy to escape on purpose. Ruffnut still doesn’t get it. Later, Windshear fires a blade at her head, and Heather hints for her use it to escape using the blade. Ruffnut knocks her down and takes Windsheer.

Astrid’s methods have all but been used up, so Astrid is out of ideas. Time for plan Tuffnut, I guess. 

Back with the others, Hiccup plans to lure the dragons away, to allow for the rescue now. The plan seems to work, and he has the leader of the pack and 2 others following him. Snotlout and Johann set down for the rescue.

In the sky, Hiccup is knocked off toothless and we see the latest iteration of Hiccup’s flight suit at work, neat. He shows it off to the dragons, giving the indication that they’re friendly. 

Meanwhile it seems Tuffnut’s attacks are working, it helps that they only seem to ever come in 3s. Dagur manages to conclude that the team have split up.

Hiccup has got all the dragons from earlier following him, as Ruffnut catches up on Windshear and fills them in on what’s been happening at the Edge in their absence. 

Just as everything begins to look hopeless for Astrid and Tuffnut the others arrive and turn the tide. Heather manages to claim back Windshear and rescues Dagur and Ryker, with Ryker promising his return.

With the attack settled, they decide to take the wild dragons back to the Island and they accidentally forget about Johann. Whoops.

It’s got some decent action, but the budget it probably what holds it back here. You really need to be seeing more of Ryker’s men leading the charge to give the impression this situation is as dire as they claim it to be.

Rating 8/10